224 research outputs found
On the Monadic Second-Order Transduction Hierarchy
We compare classes of finite relational structures via monadic second-order
transductions. More precisely, we study the preorder where we set C \subseteq K
if, and only if, there exists a transduction {\tau} such that
C\subseteq{\tau}(K). If we only consider classes of incidence structures we can
completely describe the resulting hierarchy. It is linear of order type
{\omega}+3. Each level can be characterised in terms of a suitable variant of
tree-width. Canonical representatives of the various levels are: the class of
all trees of height n, for each n \in N, of all paths, of all trees, and of all
grids
Structural Properties of the First-Order Transduction Quasiorder
Logical transductions provide a very useful tool to encode classes of structures inside other classes of structures. In this paper we study first-order (FO) transductions and the quasiorder they induce on infinite classes of finite graphs. Surprisingly, this quasiorder is very complex, though shaped by the locality properties of first-order logic. This contrasts with the conjectured simplicity of the monadic second order (MSO) transduction quasiorder. We first establish a local normal form for FO transductions, which is of independent interest. Then we prove that the quotient partial order is a bounded distributive join-semilattice, and that the subposet of additive classes is also a bounded distributive join-semilattice. The FO transduction quasiorder has a great expressive power, and many well studied class properties can be defined using it. We apply these structural properties to prove, among other results, that FO transductions of the class of paths are exactly perturbations of classes with bounded bandwidth, that the local variants of monadic stability and monadic dependence are equivalent to their (standard) non-local versions, and that the classes with pathwidth at most k, for k ? 1 form a strict hierarchy in the FO transduction quasiorder
On the first-order transduction quasiorder of hereditary classes of graphs
Logical transductions provide a very useful tool to encode classes of
structures inside other classes of structures, and several important class
properties can be defined in terms of transductions. In this paper we study
first-order (FO) transductions and the quasiorder they induce on infinite
classes of finite graphs. Surprisingly, this quasiorder is very complex, though
shaped by the locality properties of first-order logic. This contrasts with the
conjectured simplicity of the monadic second order (MSO) transduction
quasiorder. We first establish a local normal form for FO transductions, which
is of independent interest. This normal form allows to prove, among other
results, that the local variants of (monadic) stability and (monadic)
dependence are equivalent to their non-local versions. Then we prove that the
quotient partial order is a bounded distributive join-semilattice, and that the
subposet of additive classes is also a bounded distributive join-semilattice.
We characterize transductions of paths, cubic graphs, and cubic trees in terms
of bandwidth, bounded degree, and treewidth. We establish that the classes of
all graphs with pathwidth at most , for form a strict hierarchy in
the FO transduction quasiorder and leave open whether the same holds for the
classes of all graphs with treewidth at most . We identify the obstructions
for a class to be a transduction of a class with bounded degree, leading to an
interesting transduction duality formulation. Eventually, we discuss a notion
of dense analogs of sparse transduction-preserved class properties, and propose
several related conjectures
On the Parameterized Intractability of Monadic Second-Order Logic
One of Courcelle's celebrated results states that if C is a class of graphs
of bounded tree-width, then model-checking for monadic second order logic
(MSO_2) is fixed-parameter tractable (fpt) on C by linear time parameterized
algorithms, where the parameter is the tree-width plus the size of the formula.
An immediate question is whether this is best possible or whether the result
can be extended to classes of unbounded tree-width. In this paper we show that
in terms of tree-width, the theorem cannot be extended much further. More
specifically, we show that if C is a class of graphs which is closed under
colourings and satisfies certain constructibility conditions and is such that
the tree-width of C is not bounded by \log^{84} n then MSO_2-model checking is
not fpt unless SAT can be solved in sub-exponential time. If the tree-width of
C is not poly-logarithmically bounded, then MSO_2-model checking is not fpt
unless all problems in the polynomial-time hierarchy can be solved in
sub-exponential time
Shrub-depth: Capturing Height of Dense Graphs
The recent increase of interest in the graph invariant called tree-depth and
in its applications in algorithms and logic on graphs led to a natural
question: is there an analogously useful "depth" notion also for dense graphs
(say; one which is stable under graph complementation)? To this end, in a 2012
conference paper, a new notion of shrub-depth has been introduced, such that it
is related to the established notion of clique-width in a similar way as
tree-depth is related to tree-width. Since then shrub-depth has been
successfully used in several research papers. Here we provide an in-depth
review of the definition and basic properties of shrub-depth, and we focus on
its logical aspects which turned out to be most useful. In particular, we use
shrub-depth to give a characterization of the lower levels of the
MSO1 transduction hierarchy of simple graphs
Monadic second-order definable graph orderings
We study the question of whether, for a given class of finite graphs, one can
define, for each graph of the class, a linear ordering in monadic second-order
logic, possibly with the help of monadic parameters. We consider two variants
of monadic second-order logic: one where we can only quantify over sets of
vertices and one where we can also quantify over sets of edges. For several
special cases, we present combinatorial characterisations of when such a linear
ordering is definable. In some cases, for instance for graph classes that omit
a fixed graph as a minor, the presented conditions are necessary and
sufficient; in other cases, they are only necessary. Other graph classes we
consider include complete bipartite graphs, split graphs, chordal graphs, and
cographs. We prove that orderability is decidable for the so called
HR-equational classes of graphs, which are described by equation systems and
generalize the context-free languages
Transforming structures by set interpretations
We consider a new kind of interpretation over relational structures: finite
sets interpretations. Those interpretations are defined by weak monadic
second-order (WMSO) formulas with free set variables. They transform a given
structure into a structure with a domain consisting of finite sets of elements
of the orignal structure. The definition of these interpretations directly
implies that they send structures with a decidable WMSO theory to structures
with a decidable first-order theory. In this paper, we investigate the
expressive power of such interpretations applied to infinite deterministic
trees. The results can be used in the study of automatic and tree-automatic
structures.Comment: 36 page
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